Unexpected
by Finfunny
Summary: Jamie's life was pretty normal. Work, family, the usual. Who would have though that could change so quickly. Suddenly Jenna and her family are thrown into the zombie apocalypse where they will soon come to meet the characters we all know and love. Or maybe hate who knows? Your choice


"An apocalypse."

"Yep."

"A zombie-fucking-apocalypse."

"Dallas, I swear, if I ever hear language like that coming out of your mouth again I will sew it shut myself."

"Sorry mom." He smirked

Typical. It was a Jordan family ritual for the three children and parents to have dinner together on a Sunday night. After a busy week, it was meant to be a time to relax, talk to each other, catch up on the week's events. Unfortunately, Jamie's younger brother Dallas was never one to shy away when it came to expressing opinions in a somewhat individual way.

Jamie couldn't help but laugh under her breath. Both her and her older brother Bailey could appreciate their little brother's rather forward sense of humour. However their mother, Sophia, had reached her limit a long time ago.

"Dallas, you are twenty-seven years old and it's about time you started acting like it." She then turned her fierce stare toward Jamie, "I would prefer it if we didn't speak about zombies while we eat dinner thank you."

"I'm not joking mom, I've heard all these weird rumors about walking corpses-"

"Jamie, I said enough. That's all they are. Rumors. I'll bet it just some prank that's been blown up on the internet or something. Whatever you kids are into."

"Well if it's really the end of the world, I think I might start eating. Who knows how many more meals I'll get right?" Their father, John, joked with a smirk.

"Yeah, you probably won't get too many meals for yourself, but you might become someone else's dinner," Dallas chuckled. "This might just be our last dinner together guys, make the most of it."

"Dallas, personally I don't think you'll ever have to worry about a zombie coming after you." Jamie said with a smirk.

"Oh? And why might that be?" He asked his older sister.

"Because your brain's so small I doubt any zombie would even bother." She shot back at him.

Her quick comments earned her quite a few laughs from around the table, even her mother cracked a small smile. Dallas just looked at her and rolled his eyes, "congratulations Jamie, one successful joke! You're moving up in the world." In response she simply raised her eyebrows and smirked.

The rest of the night went as usual. They ate their meal and chatted about the week that had just gone by. Jamie loved the time they spent together as a family, it was the only time the five of them were able to spend together anymore, it seemed.

Jamie worked as an obstetrician, meaning she was on-call almost every moment of the day. Delivering babies was the most rewarding job in the world, but it also meant her social life outside the hospital was composed of virtually nothing. Still, this didn't bother her too much; she had friends at work and her family was always there to support her.

One look at the time was enough to rouse her from her drowsy state on the sofa.

"Okay well, I love you all but I think it's time for me to get going." Jamie announced. "I have to be up at 5.30 tomorrow." Ugh. Just thinking about her alarm clock made her want to crawl up into a ball and cry.

One by one she went and hugged her family members goodnight, before walking outside to her banged-up, Toyota pickup. It wasn't the car you'd expect a thirty-year-old obstetrician to drive but hey, what did she care? Truth be told, Jamie was rarely what anyone expected her to be. Back in high school her friends had always expected her to work in some sort of trade, maybe a carpenter, or even a builder. Certainly not a doctor. She had definitely shocked them all with that one.

She hopped into her car and was about to drive off when she heard someone knock on the passenger die window; the sudden sound caused her to jump violently. It was Bailey, her oldest brother.

"Bailey, my God, what the hell?" She was still breathing heavily, "Its pitch black out here, you shouldn't sneak up on people like that!"

"Jesus, Jamie, I'm sorry," he claimed, holding up his hands, "mind if I come in for a second? I gotta talk to you about something."

"Can you make it fast?" Jamie really wasn't the mood. She had work at 6.30 tomorrow morning and if he really had to speak to her could he not have done it during the three hours she had just spent sitting around doing nothing?

"Yes I can make it fast." Bailey slid in and closed the door. "Listen, Jamie, remember earlier how you brought up the rumors going around about the weird undead zombie shit?"

"Um yes?" _Why the hell would be bring this up now?_ "Why the hell are you bringing this up now?"

"Because they aren't just rumors." Yep. That perked Jamie right up. "They're 100% real, and they're becoming a serious problem. You need to be on your guard, especially when you're at the hospital."

"Woah Bailey slow down," she was still trying to process what her brother was saying, "how do you know this?"

"I saw one."

"Bullshit."

"I. Saw. One."

"You're just trying to scare me."

"What? No I just-"

"Dallas told you to do this right? To get me back?"

"Jamie I'm actually trying to be serious with you right now. Would you please just give me two minutes of your time?"

"I'll give you one minute and thirty seconds and that's only if you're lucky. Now hurry up."

"Okay, okay calm down." He seemed almost panicked, "I know you probably aren't gonna believe me, but I need you to at least pretend like you do so I don't go insane okay?"

"Bailey just tell me what you want to tell me. I'm listening okay?"

"I went running this morning, the same run I always do," Jamie rolled her eyes at this; she knew for a fact that Bailey had been on three runs in the past year, "and when I went through the alley next to my apartment building I saw something." He started breathing faster and Jamie placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.

"Hey, Hey Bailey, calm down okay? Deep breaths." His muscles seemed to relax under her touch, but his skin looked so pale she thought he might faint. "Tell me what you saw."

Jamie now knew for a fact that her brother was not making this story up. Bailey had never been scared easily; when they were children she had tried countless times to scare frighten him, but only rarely would she ever receive a decent reaction. Whatever he had seen, she knew it must have been horrible.

"It looked like a person… eating another person." His voice was shaking, "but it couldn't have been a person; the sounds it made – they just didn't sound human, the snarling, the growling… it was like an animal."

Bailey turned to face her, his eyes more serious than she had ever seen them. "Jamie, tonight you, Dallas, and dad were all joking about this like it was nothing. You can't afford to do that anymore. This morning I saw a human ripped apart by one of those things. You cannot treat anything you hear relating to these incidents as a joke anymore."

Jamie was completely speechless. Her older brother, her fearless older brother was sitting in the passenger seat of her truck, almost in tears, telling her that he had seen a zombie rip apart and eat a human being in the alley beside his apartment building. Quite a night she was having.

"Bailey I'm going to take you home okay?" He was shaking violently, and she didn't believe that it was a good idea for him to be driving. "I'm sure dad will bring you your car tomorrow, you shouldn't be driving while you're shaking like this."

"You think I'm crazy, don't you?" Honestly, yeah she kinda did. "Jamie, you have to believe me, I need you to believe me."

"Bailey, you need to relax. I'll talk to you properly when you aren't hyperventilating." The current situation had put her into doctor mode, her current tone was the one which she used when dealing with distressed mothers.

She was unsure of whether to tell her parents that she was driving Bailey home but came to the conclusion that they would become too concerned as to why he couldn't drive himself. Considering his current condition, Jamie was sure Bailey did not need to have his mother fussing over him all night. She drove off with the intention of calling her parents once Bailey was home and safe.

Her parents lived 20 minutes outside of Atlanta which gave her plenty of time to think as she drove into the city.

Well.

Great.

Did she believe her brother's claims and begin preparations for the zombie apocalypse? Begin collecting supplies? Rob a few grocery stores?

Did she believe her brother was crazy and drop him off at a mental institution on the way back to her apartment?

Or…

Did she simply jump to the conclusion that Bailey was just most likely tired and didn't know what he was saying? This way she could just listen to his rambling, get him to his apartment, drive to her own home, and sleep.

Yeah. Option three seemed very reasonable.

The traffic wasn't bad, and they reached Bailey's apartment building by ten o'clock. Once they were upstairs she sat him down on the sofa and looked him dead in the eyes. "Bailey, you've had a long day. I'm not saying I don't believe what you saw but I think you just need to relax for a while. I'll call you tomorrow okay?"

Bailey just nodded, clearly defeated, and Jamie smiled sadly before leaving.

 _What was that_? _What the hell am I supposed to do right now_? Before she got the chance to do anything her phone started to buzz in her pocket, it was her mother calling.

"Hey mom-"

"Jamie! Bailey's car is still here but we don't know where he is, did he tell you if he was going anywhere or-"

"Mom relax its fine. I drove him home; he told me he wasn't feeling well and I thought it was better if he didn't drive home by himself. I was gonna call you when I got home."

"Oh, thank God, we were so worried! Jamie, you should have just told him to stay here; Dallas is staying over anyway."

Her eyebrows furrowed with concern, "Why is Dallas staying at your house? I seem to recall him having a home of his own."

Jamie could practically feel her mother's eyes rolling. "Amy kicked him out again. Honestly, if those two could stay together longer than two weeks it would make me the happiest mother in the world."

"Well don't worry they'll be back together again by Tuesday if my calculations are correct," Jenna chuckled.

Sophia shared her daughter's laugh, "Yes, yes very true. Alright, well, I'm gonna get some sleep, I love you Jamie."

"Love you too." She hung up the phone and continued walking down the stairs and out of Bailey's building. Once outside she came to a stop. Directly beside her was the alleyway that she knew Bailey had told her about. Surely it wouldn't hurt to look. There was one streetlight directly in front of the alleyway, casting enough light to that Jamie wouldn't have to venture too far in in order to view anything inside it.

She felt an odd sense of nervousness as she walked toward the alleyway. _You're being ridiculous, there are no such thing as zombies, honestly what are you expecting to see?_

As she turned the corner and at first felt a strong sense of relief; there were no bodies, nor corpses with guts ripped out. However, that relief was short-lived, for in the middle of the alleyway there was a large puddle.

This puddle was not water, it was something else. Something that looked suspiciously like blood. Dark, almost black, thick blood. But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was the fact that there was no body to claim this mess. Almost like someone had taken the body, but left the crime scene to rot. Jamie realised with a start that perhaps no one taken the body, because this body could have moved itself.

She felt tears well up in her eyes and she sprinted to her truck, desperate to get away from the bloody mess in the alley.

She sped away in the direction of her apartment, and she did not look back.


End file.
